Abstract:
A growing body of research on the middle classes in South Africa is concerned with patters of
consumption while fewer scholars engage with the inequality that accompanies greater social
differentiation. Little existing research addresses the ways in which new members of the black
middle class legitimise newfound wealth and social mobility. Taking inspiration from
anthropologists who have documented societal responses to changing configurations of wealth
and inequality elsewhere in Africa, I employ the life-history method to ask how one Sowetan
man, who self-identifies as being black and middle class, frames his own social mobility. I find
that spatial metaphors play an important role in legitimising social mobility. I also find that one
response to accusations of materialism and conspicuous consumption levelled against the urban
black middle class is a renewal of certain cultural practices in which private wealth can
legitimately be converted into social wealth.
